Politics A Whirlwind Envelops the White House, and the Revolving Door Spins

05:46 13 february 2018

05:46 13 february 2018 Source:
The New York Times

Steve Bannon met with Mueller multiple times over the past week

Steve Bannon, who served as President Trump's chief strategist, was interviewed by the special counsel over multiple days this week, NBC News has learned.WASHINGTON — Steve Bannon, who served as President Trump's chief strategist, was interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller over multiple days this week, NBC News has learned from two sources familiar with the proceedings.

The Trump White House has had a 34 percent turnover rate, higher than any White House in decades. Credit Tom Brenner/The New York Times. WASHINGTON — The doors at the White House have been swinging a lot lately.

This was the same race in which Google's Eric Schmidt started campaigning for the man who is now president, and ever since then, it seems that ties between the internet giant and the White House have been close.

WASHINGTON — The doors at the White House have been swinging a lot lately. A deputy chief of staff moved on. A speechwriter resigned. The associate attorney general stepped down. The chief of staff offered to quit. And that was just Friday.

All of that came after the departure of Rob Porter, the White House staff secretary who cleared out his office last week amid accusations of spousal abuse. The White House had overlooked reported problems with his security clearance last year in part, officials said, because of a reluctance to lose yet another senior aide, particularly one seen as so professional and reliable.

Bannon Appearance Before House Panel Delayed for Negotiations

Former White House strategist Steve Bannon’s interview with a House committee looking into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election has been delayed a week, according to a lawmaker on the panel. Load Error “There are still negotiations going on,” Republican Representative Peter King of New York said.Bannon had planned to skip a closed-door session with the House Intelligence Committee Tuesday despite being subpoenaed to appear, two people familiar with the matter said Monday.

This door merely represents the exchange of labor between the higher echelons of government and business. What do supporters and detractors have to say about the Revolving Door ? Find out on the next page.

FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, who briefly led the agency after President Donald Trump sacked the former director, is the latest in a long line of senior government officials who have been fired or eased out by the White House .

More than a year into his administration, President Trump is presiding over a staff in turmoil, one with a 34 percent turnover rate, higher than any White House in decades. He has struggled to fill openings, unwilling to hire Republicans he considers disloyal and unable to entice Republicans who consider him unstable. Those who do come to work for him often do not last long, burning out from a volatile, sometimes cutthroat environment exacerbated by tweets and subpoenas.

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To visit the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, the granite, slate and cast iron edifice across West Executive Avenue from the White House where most of the president’s staff works, at times feels like walking through a ghost town. The hallways do not bustle as much as in past administrations. The budget director is doing double duty as the acting head of the consumer protection agency. The personnel director is doing triple duty, also overseeing the offices of political affairs and public liaison.

Rob Porter ex-wife: I told FBI about the abuse

Jennifer Willoughby, the second ex-wife of White House staff secretary Rob Porter, told NBC News Thursday that she informed the FBI during his background interview for a top-level security clearance that he was abusive toward her."During the FBI background interview for security clearance, I shared with the FBI all of the details that I shared in previous articles, including access to a protective order from June of 2010, and police calls that I had made to our home," she told NBC News' Kristen Welker.

BREAKING DOWN ' Revolving Door '. Some half-hearted attempts have been made to close the revolving door , but most of these have simply meant a one- to two-year waiting period before a former public servant can work in the industry he or she was involved in.

[Chorus:] Now Ladies come, ladies go, Out my revolving door Some ladies never come back, Most come back for more. I've got a house in the hills With a door that spins . Goes in and out, Out and in, 'Round and 'round again.

“We have vacancies on top of vacancies,” said Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who has studied White House turnover over the last six administrations. “You have initial vacancies, you have people who left in the first year and now you have people who are leaving in the second year.”

According to a report by Ms. Tenpas, Mr. Trump’s 34 percent turnover rate in his first year is more than three times as high as President Barack Obama’s in the same period and twice as high as President Ronald Reagan’s, which until now was the modern record-holder. Of 12 positions deemed most central to the president, only five are still filled by the same person as when Mr. Trump took office.

Mr. Trump is on his second press secretary, his second national security adviser and his third deputy national security adviser. Five different people have been named communications director or served in the job in an acting capacity. The president has parted ways with his chief strategist, health secretary, several deputy chiefs of staff and his original private legal team. He is on his second chief of staff — and some wonder whether a third may be in the offing soon.

Schiff: Kelly should give Trump 'a time out'

Hours off of receiving a second Twitter attack from President Donald Trump, California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff said White House chief of staff John Kelly should put the President in "time out.""It may be time for General Kelly to give the President a time out," Schiff said in an interview on Monday with CNN's Jim Sciutto. "I think the country would certainly benefit from that anyway.

Still with us? It’s startling the number of high-ranking Obama officials who have spun through the revolving door between the White House and the sacred halls of investment banking.

Some administration officials privately spend much of their time trying to figure out how to leave without looking disloyal or provoking an easily angered president. Others, like Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, stubbornly resist what seem like clear signals that they are no longer welcome.

“I’m still here,” Mr. Tillerson told Fox News last week, months after the White House was reported in The New York Times and elsewhere to have a plan to replace him. “Nothing has changed.” Asked if he thought some in the administration were still advocating that he be replaced, Mr. Tillerson said, “I have no idea.”

Grueling in the best of times, an administration job now seems even less appealing to many potential recruits. Republican operatives said they worry not only about the pressure-cooker, soap-opera atmosphere and the danger of being drawn into the special counsel investigation of Russia’s election interference but also about hurting their careers after the White House.

“There isn’t a huge appetite from many Republicans on the outside to explore job opportunities in this administration,” said Ryan Williams, a former spokesman for Mitt Romney, the party’s 2012 presidential nominee. “While there are a lot of vacancies and usually a position in the White House is one of the most prestigious jobs in Washington, that’s just not the feeling with this administration, given the turmoil and the chaos.”

Ex-wife: Porter informed in September security clearance was 'delayed'

Disgraced former White House aide Rob Porter told one of his ex-wives in September that he was informed that his security clearance check was "delayed" in part because of concerns that he was "violent." The revelation, shared with CNN on Wednesday by Porter's ex-wife Jennie Willoughby, raises fresh questions about who at the White House knew what -- and when -- regarding the domestic abuse allegations leveled against Porter by his two ex-wives, Willoughby and Colbie Holderness. Both women have said they were interviewed by the FBI in January 2017 as a part of Porter's background check.

To find out more about Facebook commenting please read the Conversation Guidelines and FAQs. Slowing the revolving door : Column. The shadow of President Obama is cast on a wall as he leaves a news conference in the Rose Garden of the White House in 2009.

And Liz Fowler? The White House brought her over from congress to oversee the new law’s implementation; first at the department of health and human And the revolving door spins even faster after a big election like the one we had last month, as scores of officials, elected representatives

John F. Kelly was charged with reining in the turmoil and the chaos when he took over as chief of staff last summer, and many credit him with imposing more order on the building and shuffling out some of the more quarrelsome figures. But many White House officials were already souring on Mr. Kelly even before his handling of the abuse allegations against Mr. Porter gave his internal critics new ammunition against him.

Mr. Trump has expressed frustration with Mr. Kelly as well, but has sent mixed signals about whether he might replace him.

“Clearly between the two of them, Kelly and Trump, they don’t know what it is to manage,” said Terry Sullivan, the executive director of the White House Transition Project, which studies presidential personnel and management. “And by historical standards, they are particularly bad at it.”

Those who leave tell friends and associates horror stories that do not help with recruitment. Omarosa Manigault Newman, a former contestant on Mr. Trump’s reality TV show “The Apprentice” who worked in the White House until Mr. Kelly pushed her out in December, cried as she described her experiences during a new episode of “The Celebrity Big Brother” that aired on CBS last week.

“So I’m there fighting, fighting, fighting, getting my head bashed in, and nobody coming out publicly to say, ‘We support her,’” she told a fellow competitor. Asked if the nation would be O.K., she said, “No, it’s going to not be O.K. It’s not.” She added that she would not vote for Mr. Trump again “in a million years, never.”

Jennie Willoughby said she doesn't think Porter has changed, and she's worried about White House communications director Hope Hicks , who he is currently dating.Willoughby told Cooper that Porter asked her to take down a blog post from April 2017 detailing the abuse, and asked her to put out a statement downplaying the allegations. Ultimately, Willoughby said she didn't agree to the statement because she didn't agree with the language. Willoughby said she was in contact with Porter within the last two weeks, but has not been since the Daily Mail broke the allegations Tuesday night.

The White House Revolving Door . Revolving doors typically have a "speed control" (governor) to prevent people from spinning the doors too fast.

A revolving door typically consists of three or four doors that hang on a central shaft and rotate around a vertical axis within a cylindrical enclosure. Revolving doors are energy efficient as they prevent drafts (via acting as an airlock)

Beyond those leaving, many positions have never been filled nearly 13 months after the inauguration. Some of those vacancies stem from the glacial pace of background investigations and the Senate confirmation process, which has grown worse with each successive president. But in many cases, the Trump administration has still not identified candidates.

According to the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit organization that tracks appointments along with The Washington Post, the Trump administration has made the fewest nominations, not counting those that have failed, and has had the fewest confirmed by this point of any of the last five administrations. At the State Department, nominees have yet to be made for three under secretary positions and 10 assistant secretary positions, senior-level jobs that have traditionally been crucial to managing foreign policy.

Now in its second year, the president’s team is trying to get ahead of the situation. The White House on Friday released a raft of appointments. But a vast majority of the 32 announced were actually just promotions from within, or additional titles for existing staff members.

The top two appointments on the list were James Carroll as acting national drug policy director and John DeStefano as counselor to the president, both choices that underlined the challenges for the White House.

For Mr. Carroll, it will be his fourth job in the White House since the administration’s inception; he started in the White House counsel’s office, then became general counsel for the budget office and served most recently as deputy chief of staff. For Mr. DeStefano, the new title was a recognition that he has already effectively been overseeing the offices of personnel, political affairs and public liaison.

The constant churning exacts a toll. “It takes time for any group to jell and learn the ropes of governing, and that is definitely complicated by turnover,” said Lisa Brown, a top White House official under Mr. Obama and President Bill Clinton. “Every new person has to learn the ropes and changes the team dynamic. No different than an Olympic ice hockey team — it takes practice and discipline to work well together as a team.”

Follow Peter Baker on Twitter: @peterbakernyt.

Porter ex-wife: 'If he hasn’t already been abusive with Hope, he will' .
<p>One of the ex-wives of former White House staff secretary Rob Porter said that if he hasn't been abusive during his relationship with communications director Hope Hicks, he soon would be.</p>Jennie Willoughby, who was married to Porter for four years until 2013, told CNN's Anderson Cooper that she was worried for Hicks.

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Revolving Door Lyrics - Crazy Town - www.lyricsfreak.com

[Chorus:] Now Ladies come, ladies go, Out my revolving door Some ladies never come back, Most come back for more. I've got a house in the hills With a door that spins . Goes in and out, Out and in, 'Round and 'round again.

To find out more about Facebook commenting please read the Conversation Guidelines and FAQs. Slowing the revolving door : Column. The shadow of President Obama is cast on a wall as he leaves a news conference in the Rose Garden of the White House in 2009.

And Liz Fowler? The White House brought her over from congress to oversee the new law’s implementation; first at the department of health and human And the revolving door spins even faster after a big election like the one we had last month, as scores of officials, elected representatives

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